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Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

businessinsider.com

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Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#191

Post by luckylion »

alistairSH wrote: post #152
luckylion wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... with the added friction of a UBI system. In most Western countries, you'll also have plenty of transfers to other countries, recent immigrants supporting their families, buying properties in "the old country" etc. Being able to do just that is a major incentive for immigration, both within Europe and from outside Europe. That's development aid with extra steps then. Granted, you might argue that it's more efficie…

The argument is generally that a single UBI system has lower friction than many disparate social support programs. The goal is to remove food stamps, income insurance (the dole, welfare, whatever you want to call it), rent subsidies, etc. All replaced with a single cash payment. Fewer programs, no income validation, no enforcement action after the fact, etc. This also has the benefit of reducing friction on the consu…

Yeah, but that'll only go so far, because we have very different social programs, e.g. somebody with severe disabilities receives far more (and means-tested) than somebody who just doesn't want to work. That won't change with UBI, so we'll mostly just replace welfare/rent subsidies (which are, at least in Germany, handled by the same agency and are essentially the same thing, only some will only get rent subsidies but no cash). There's obviously some overhead, but it's not a lot, and it's nowhere near enough where not having to spend it would make a dent in the UBI costs; it's not like we spend 2 euros in administrative cost for every euro we pay out.

> No need to exchange food stamps for cash at 50% face value in order to by beer, just take some of the cash and buy beer. Empower individuals to live how they want.

It's been that way for quite a long time in Germany, cash is the default, vouchers are only a thing in rare cases where the cash component (~400Euros/month; rent, healthcare, utilities etc are paid directly) is reduced by more than 30% due to penalties so people can still buy food. Generally, people get cash and are free to spend it as they see fit.

A large problem with "cash only" (e.g. rent etc not paid directly) is that there's a significant number of people who are unable to handle money. I know, because I live next to some of them. If you give them 1100 euros instead of 400 in cash + 700 in rent and healthcare payments, you'll get plenty of people who spend their 1100 euros on things other than rent. And in that case, you'll either have to accept that they'll become homeless (and we won't accept that), or you have to still pay their rent directly, on top of whatever cash you give them.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#192

Post by tie_ »

zhoujianfu wrote: post #104
baconandeggs wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will it? People will just say we need better mental health treatments. I don't think there is a good argument against UBI that they'll accept. But of course, they don't answer the real question which is who's gonna do all the producing? The ones producing are clearly gonna be the ones being taken advantage of on UBI, even if it works 100% as expected .

I wouldn’t really call it “being taken advantage of”.. in a real UBI, you’d only produce something if you were going to get paid enough that you want to do it. Nobody will have to produce anything they don’t want to, now that the UBI removes the fear of where their next meal will come from. I know I personally would still want to produce things to take home MORE than the UBI.

Well, the UBI money you get would be used to buy something that someone else has produced (an iPhone, a piece of bread, a bottle of wine, etc.). In this sense, the UBI that you are getting represents _goods_ that _someone else_ is producing (and "donating" into the system in the form of taxes). I find this easier to reason about when you take the concept of "money" out of the equation.

So,oOption A is that you "donate" more goods into the system than the UBI you are consuming, which is all fine and dandy for the rest of us. Option B is that you are consuming more value that you are donating, which is less fun for the rest.

So, some people will need to overproduce in order for the people who under-produce to get their UBI worth of goods. Mind you, this isn't different than the current state of affairs. The big question for me is how would the introduction of UBI ultimately affect that ratio, given that you would be less disincentivized to stay with the underproducing group?

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#193

Post by ghostwriter »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #177
baconandeggs wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law should be the leader . Sadly we have forgotten that.

then the people who write the laws become the leaders, except with a layer of obfuscation. how do we make laws that treat everyone equally?

> how do we make laws that treat everyone equally?

by stopping enacting laws that are oriented towards the abstract "society as a whole" and "benefits to the society as a whole", and by beginning treating an individual as the smallest minority in the world whose unalienable rights require protection from the crowd.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#194

Post by JoshuaDavid »

luckylion wrote: post #133
nemothekid wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions. There is no proof that would actually appease you. There is no way you could measure the effect on inflation wi…

> There is no proof that would actually appease you. That's not a reason to not even try to offer anything though. You could start with a trial of these 120 persons (select from all classes of society), give them UBI and double their taxes to make it realistic, because the UBI has to be paid somehow. If plenty of them would have less money during this trial and still find UBI worth it, that would be a strong signal.…

One possible trial that would interest me is a UBI, implemented on a county-wide basis somewhere. It might be possible to find a county containing a single city, somewhere near the center so people can't easily just move immediately outside the border of where the UBI applies, where a high enough fraction of the people in that town are in favor of a UBI to pass some resolution to create a county-wide income or property tax that funds a county-wide basic income.

The issue with that is that I suspect higher-level governments (state, federal) would decide that

a. An individual county imposing taxes that high is illegal b. UBI benefits must be paid out immediately to all residents of the city upon moving there (and now every poor person everywhere wants to move to your city).

Still, maybe there's a clever way to try it out in a fairly self-contained system?

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#195

Post by [deleted] »

vorpalhex wrote: post #120
Fargren wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. People who are born in wealthier families are not playing under the same rules (just imagine if a person playing Monopoly started with ten times the initial amount of money). I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can quibble abo…

What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor? They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone. Sure, your Hollywood actor is probably driving an exotic sports car and their iphone is diamond studded, but fundamentally, what does it matter? > housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair I agree in the general…

[deleted]

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#196

Post by dane-pgp »

koonsolo wrote: post #178

Last time I asked this question here, I got downvoted without any answers. So here is my second try, this time specifically for Germany: Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount. And let's assume everyone will keep working at their current job. (Which they won't since at a "Basic Income" pricepoint, lots of people would prefer spending mor…

Here's a proposal for how it could be gradually implemented in the UK by simplifying the tax code:

https://atlaspragmatica.com/arguments-for-a-ubi-conclusion/

It seems to roughly involve the top 22% of earners having a tax bill that is up to 10% bigger than currently, while everyone in the bottom 78% of earners is unaffected or a net beneficiary.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#197

Post by dragonwriter »

tie_ wrote: post #192
zhoujianfu wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t really call it “being taken advantage of”.. in a real UBI, you’d only produce something if you were going to get paid enough that you want to do it. Nobody will have to produce anything they don’t want to, now that the UBI removes the fear of where their next meal will come from. I know I personally would still want to produce things to take home MORE than the UBI.

Well, the UBI money you get would be used to buy something that someone else has produced (an iPhone, a piece of bread, a bottle of wine, etc.). In this sense, the UBI that you are getting represents _goods_ that _someone else_ is producing (and "donating" into the system in the form of taxes). I find this easier to reason about when you take the concept of "money" out of the equation. So,oOption A is that you "donat…

> The big question for me is how would the introduction of UBI ultimately affect that ratio, given that you would be less disincentivized to stay with the underproducing group?

The “given” is backwards. Compared to existing means-tested welfare systems, UBI funded by additional high-end taxes provides less disincentive to move out of the underproducing group.

If the minimum support level provided by UBI is used (in whole or in part) to offset and reduce minimum wage, it also reduces the barriers to people moving immediately to a less-inderprodicing level, and eventually up and out of the underproducing group.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#198

Post by kpsnow »

I don’t have a very good grasp of economics, but can anyone explain why it makes sense to give someone $1000 to do nothing when you can pay them $1000 to do something productive, like build a road? Ideas like negative income tax, government supplemented minimum wages, or increasing EITC makes more sense to me.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#199

Post by zzzzzzzza »

kpsnow wrote: post #198

I don’t have a very good grasp of economics, but can anyone explain why it makes sense to give someone $1000 to do nothing when you can pay them $1000 to do something productive, like build a road? Ideas like negative income tax, government supplemented minimum wages, or increasing EITC makes more sense to me.

they may know better than you how to use resources available to them in their position.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#200

Post by zhoujianfu »

tie_ wrote: post #192
zhoujianfu wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t really call it “being taken advantage of”.. in a real UBI, you’d only produce something if you were going to get paid enough that you want to do it. Nobody will have to produce anything they don’t want to, now that the UBI removes the fear of where their next meal will come from. I know I personally would still want to produce things to take home MORE than the UBI.

Well, the UBI money you get would be used to buy something that someone else has produced (an iPhone, a piece of bread, a bottle of wine, etc.). In this sense, the UBI that you are getting represents _goods_ that _someone else_ is producing (and "donating" into the system in the form of taxes). I find this easier to reason about when you take the concept of "money" out of the equation. So,oOption A is that you "donat…

I agree this is already the state of affairs.. some people generate more goods/services/value than they consume (and build wealth), others do not.

I think everything would still work out fine with a UBI because we’d still have the most market forces at play (compared to all other social welfare/safety net/redistribution schemes). If it turns out the UBI is too high, the people who produce will have to raise prices for goods to find equilibrium again. If it’s not, prices will stay the same (or drop). Overall though, it’s the most efficient way to make sure nobody starves, even those who for some reason or other just can’t compete in the future economy.

I think once we have a UBI people will look back to the days before it like we look back at the hunter-gatherer days today, “I can’t believe in the early 21st century everybody HAD to work, just to survive!”

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